I’m hopefully going to be taking delivery of Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ in the next few days. It will be feeding directly into my Aaron No.3 power amp and totem arro floor standers.
I’m wondering about different options for streaming into it, so far from reading this is my shortlist:
reuse a bluesound node2 I already have
build a ropieee
sonore microrendu from eBay
Be really good to hear from anyone who has experience of using one or more of these with the Brooklyn. Will there be much to tell them apart in functionality or sound quality?
The obvious answer is to reuse the kit you have and know. That gives you a benchmark. Then I would leap straight to the MicroRendu. If you can get one second hand it gives you the option to sell on at no loss if it doesn’t please you. I have and use Ropieee with screen in my second system and I like it immensely but in a main system I would use it as display/control only. So in short, all of them!
The Node is available! Ropieee offers recognition of a lot of DAC’s via USB and quite dynamic and rapid support. MR is a mature product that offers functionality other than RoonBridge and (arguably) the best potential for sound quality in the form of a clean efficient conversion from Ethernet to USB but at a price.
The Allo USBridge is another option. Distinct step up from the RPi I was using. I’m trying it with the Liberty at the moment; seems to work well (early days yet).
I imagine the MR is another step up from the Allo, not sure how much though. The MR is available for $500 in the US at the moment, which sounds like a good deal to me
I have tried it both ways, and to me Roon/MR v1.4 sounds better than the Roon/Node 2 playing Tidal or my own files, although I kind of wish it didn’t so I could drive down the box count. But the Node 2 is a great Spotify and internet radio player, which is awkward with Roon/MR, so I am using both now. I bypass the Node 2 DAC and let my Audio Alchemy DDP-1 upsample the Node 2 signal over a nice piece of coaxial cable to 32/216. Sounds very good.
